Tiki and Technology: Two Curious New Dallas Bars Open This Week

This weekend, you’ll have two new Dallas bars to choose from: Hide, a Deep Ellum cocktail bar that features 30 cocktails made using equipment like centrifuges, and Pilikia, a tiki bar opening in what used to be Three Sheets.

Hide opens at 5 p.m. Friday at 2816 Elm St. and will feature “a clean, minimalistic ambiance with floating liquor shelves and a hydroponic herb garden,” according to a press release. Here’s a sampling of the drink menu from Scott Jenkins, director of beverage and principal bartender, and owner Nick Backlund:

Get used to seeing a lot more sherry and aquavit on cocktail menus around Dallas this year, not just at Deep Ellum “cocktail laboratories” with centrifuges and floating liquor shelves.

Over on Ross, the team behind Truth & Alibi and the Tipsy Alchemist is hosting a soft opening Thursday night for Pilikia, where you’ll find “creative and extravagant cocktails that honor mid-century Tiki culture.” There’s also a lot of mention of Polynesia in Pilikia’s descriptions, although the mid-century Tiki movement in the U.S. has only loose associations to the actual Polynesia and was a purely American construct created by an enterprising West Coast bartender — but that’s a story for another day.

Pilikia has a soft opening at 8 p.m. Thursday at 3113 Ross Ave.

Beth Rankin is an Ohio native and Cicerone-certified beer server who specializes in social media, food and drink, travel and news reporting. Her belief system revolves around the significance of Topo Chico, the refusal to eat crawfish out of season and the importance of local and regional foodways.